New Toys, I Mean Tools

After months and months of indecision, the new toy, I mean new tool has finally arrived. Not a lawn mower, not a brush grinder, but a brush mower.  Designed to cut brush and woody weeds, the brush mower was chosen as Plan473 no longer has access to the shredder. Well I should say no longer has easy access as the shredder now resides with the Worrier about five hours away.  And with no trailer to haul the shredder on either, the brush mower really was the only decision.  Having needed to the mow the spray field over two months ago, the spray heads were now completely over grown with cord grass and they are over two feet in the air!  We really should have purchased this months ago.

No time like the present. Having read the list of the all the safety gear one needs to operate the brush mower, the Kid was prepared.  Instructions were read, brush mower was assembled, and the break-in routine was followed. Guess the Kid thought taking notes on the break in routine could be dangerous to the ears and eyes.  I asked if he has safety gear for his brain.  When asked why, I said his brain was likely to explode after not having used it all summer.  Ha, ha. Score was for me! He did not find my humor as funny as me.

With the break in routine complete, the Planner gave it a once around the property to test all variants of brush.  He cut a pass through the cord grass, across the coastal patch, around the water platform, back through the seven foot tall sunflower patch behind the trailer, and back through the cord grass in a narrow path instead of full width.  Not bad.  The mower did not like the coastal grass much but this is to be expected as it not a mower and does not contain a mower shoot.  Without a mower shoot, the coastal is too long, stringy, and thick to mulch easily.

Unable to mulch, the coastal bunches up and leaves windrows.  Another pass and they were gone.  But not before the doggo had her fun.  Uh, uh, uh, grumble, grumble, moan, moan.  She was loving the freshly cut grass.  Really going to have to video her doing her dog grass rolls.  She makes the craziest of grunts and groans.

With a quick lesson on how to operate and what to do if you panic, the Kid was off mowing the thinner cord grass on the perimeter.  As with all things currently, the Kid does not weigh enough to handle the mower in the thick grass. That was left for me.

When the Kid's arms finally gave out (hard to handle a mower with twigs for arms) I finally got my turn.  In case you did not know, I was born for manual labor.  Let no blade stand before me.  Except when it is home to a wolf spider and her egg sac.  This lovely specimen was one of several dozen I mowed around.  Some were in sacs and some were on backs.  I wouldn't even let the chickens see them.  Don't know if chickens would eat a spider the size of a soda can lid but this was not a chance I was willing to take. Man how I just love new toys.  I mean tools.

Repairs, Yet Again

Having spent the better part of the morning enjoying the beautiful summer day at the harbor wall, Plan473 had to return home to spend the afternoon repairing.  Again.  If major rust control did not happen soon, we will be living in piles of rust.

Some of the repairs are due to design flaws such as all of the window hatches.  The window hatches are made square tubing and conex paneling as seen more clearly in post What Light!  Hatches then fit tightly around the window openings to secure against hurricane winds.  Conex panels are corrugated.  Corrugated panels with square tubing makes for water pockets. Water pockets makes for rust pockets.  Rust pockets leads to rust holes.  Rust holes lead to unsecured hatches.  Unsecured hatches leads to hurricane damage.

To alleviate the water pockets, small 1/8" holes were drilled in the panels to allow for drainage.  The Planner is confident these small holes will not affect the integrity of the hatch covers during a hurricane.  Hopefully, this theory will not be tested anytime in the next near future.

Once drilled, the rust and scale were sandblasted off and red primer was applied.  The Kid's Box only has three windows so his box repairs were easily completed.  The Work Box on the other hand....

My box, the Work Box was not in the best condition when purchased last March.  There was already come major scale concerns and lots of areas that needed to be stripped and repainted.  Well, that was last March and time at the Salt Capitol City of the World has lead to even more scale and more rusty areas.

A sand blaster was used to quickly remove the rusty areas with ease.  Many tools could have been used, but with rust in rusty environments, it is critical to remove corrosive rust before repainting otherwise the rusty spot will continue to rust under the fresh coat of paint. So with pitted rust, such as the Work Box contained, a sand blaster was the tool of choice.

Besides being quick, it does a better job than any hand sander and is easier too.  Easy is better as there is lots and lots to do.  Working around the door was easy as there were not areas of thick scale.  The sides of the box, where yet again the panel meets the tubing frame, was all together a different story.

Scale.  Lots and lots of thick corrosive, detrimental to box lifespan, scale. To save on sand media for the blaster, the Planner used a scaler to remove the scale.  No imaginative thought for that tool name.  Scalers, are a pneumatic tool with a bunch of tiny rods that vibrate back and forth and about a thousand RPM a second.  Very effective.  Better than a chip and hammer.  Trust me, we tried that before the scaler.  Maybe if I had all the time in the world and no electricity.  Maybe.  So with the scaler in hand, the Planner went off to remove scale.  Went off to create more work as it turns out.

Full disclosure, this thick scale was the reason repairs were started. There was just now way scale this thick had not worked its way down into the core of the frame work.  Holes to be repaired are work but water in the frame work is bad. Bad. Bad bad.

After scaling was complete, I came behind the Planner and cleaned the metal down to almost white clean with the sand blaster.  From the picture above, you can see how pitted the corrugated panel is from the deep level of scale removed.  Guess we should have descaled the Work Box last summer.  Can't image what the Shop Box frame work looks like as they have been up over two years already.  Ugh.

Upon cleaning, the Planner attempted to patch weld the tiny hole in the frame work. Big mistake.  Big.  What was once a small hole the size of an eraser is now a hole the size of a nickel.  Spot welding is not gonna work.  Gonna have to modify a piece of sheet steel to fit within the space and weld around its perimeter.

After many cardboard template cutouts, the perfect patch piece was aligned, welded, and red primer painted.  Be as it is with all Plan473 projects, time was not on our side and the project was abandoned for another day.

 Of course, we had time to stop and play with the neighbors' cat, Loca (Spanish for crazy) ...

and her two kittens Beans and Frank.  Loca was already named but is the most appropriate name for a cat if ever there was.  Beans and Frank are the Kids creation.  Originally he had something boring like Bob and Frank but after explaining about Beans and Weenies i.e. Beans and Franks, he decided Beans and Frank were better.  Unlike their mother, Beans and Frank were timid and very cautious.  Loca, not so much so.  She gave into the wind and its notion.  Which is probably how Beans and Frank came to be.  Oh, how Plan473 would love to have kitties.  Kitties to go with the goat.  But alas, we are on a NO MORE pet policy.  Chickens excluded from this rules as they are not pets.

All in all, morning slack time and late evening slack time aside, it was a very productive day at Plan473.

Pity Pets Integration

Three months have already come and gone since the Pity Pets were brought home.  When released from the coop to free range, the first few weeks they stayed as their own individual unit.  It did not take them long to roam with the pack. Being with the pack provided protection as Nurpel (the second acquired rooster) was on the hunt for a hen of his own as the new hens were his target. And as the senior flock are not pets, the Pity flock are not pets either.  In fact, I would say they are even less pet than the senior flock.  None of the feather friends can be held, touched, or collected.  On such occasions where a hen needs to be examined it takes all three of us to coral her in the 8x10 coop.  They are truly here for pest control.

Oh, and pooing on the deck and stepping stones. Daily, upon release from the coop, the hens follow a very rigid routine: 1) run to every water location (doggo water, water collection under Rainstream air conditioner, 5 gallon bucket in shower, etc...) and drink like as if you are parched and 2) upon water round completion, run to the deck and poop. Your sudden influx of water will run straight thru you and the poop will be a watery mess on the deck.  Perfect.

Stupid chickens.

So yes, within three short months the Pity flock has integrated fairly well into the senior flock.  When inside the coop, there seems to be very little arrangement of the pecking order, even amongst those at the bottom.  Feathers have almost fully returned and they have reached their full grown height.

The two Golden Lace Wyandottes (Twink 1 and Twink 2) are the slightly smaller than the Black Sussex (Squawky McSquawkerson aka Loudmouth).  Given a chance, they could over take her position as queen.  Not something I foresee in the near future as Grumpy still rules the roost, but it is possible.  Maybe.  Her look right now tells me to rethink that last statement, but her days are limited.  The Twinks have the even temperament of the Barred Rocks as they too are not very vocal and are happy being in the middle of the pack.

Closer in size to the smallest Barred Rock (Nosy Nellie, above) is the Golden Sexlink (Sunset) which can be seen in the above picture by the chicken ramp.  She too is very happy in the middle of the pack but is competitive when being released from the coop.  Watch out as she will charge out the door to be the first to the water bowl.  More than once she has had her head caught in the coop door.  Gulk! Other than her escape moments she is chill.

As for the Brown Leghorn (Ears), she is an outcast thru and thru.  The tiniest of all the hens, she was and is the most picked on.  I keep telling her it was because she slept on the coop window instead of the roosting bars.  But, hey what do I know.  She is also the only hen who lays white eggs which are so tiny they don't even seem real.  They are oval shaped ping pong balls.  When released from the coop, she leaves to do her own thing and manages to ward off the second rooster (Nurple) mostly. On very aggressive days, she will hang closer to the other rooster (Chicken) but away from the hens.  Days have come where Nurple has succeeded in catching a her, but the ruckus they cause results in Chicken chasing Nurple around and around.  It is an epic daily battle.  If the battle continues or if Nurple becomes too aggressive and hurts a hen, he will have to go.  The hens only need one rooster and Chicken is the man.

It is Chicken who surprised me the most during the integration of the Pity Pets.  He never once flocked them or chased them or rushed them.  He just watched and protected and they came around on their own for his protection.  To date, he has yet tried to advance upon them and yet is just as protective.  With exception to Ears, he is a perfect guard rooster and I cannot image having the hens without him.  Of course, he no longer sleeps in the tree outside the bedroom and rarely crows at 3:35AM anymore.  With time, Chicken has learned to temper back his beakadee-beakadee-beak-beak. Hopefully, he will be around for a little while longer to fully integrate any new additional flock members.